


Without You

by Juvinadelgreko



Series: Olicity Songfics [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Felcity loves her husband even though he makes terrible choices sometimes, Felicity focused, Fever Dreams, Gen, Nightmares, Oh Wonder—Artist, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Season/Series 07, Songfic, i made myself sad writing this, olicity - Freeform, prison is really not good for Oliver, things are just not good okay, witness protection is really not good for William and Felicity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 07:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15968018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juvinadelgreko/pseuds/Juvinadelgreko
Summary: Without You: An Olicity SongficBased on the Song “Without You” by Oh WonderA glimpse into Oliver and Felicity’s time apart while he’s in prison.One of the only things Felicity was allowed keep from her life before witness protection was her musical preference. There are too many songs, she finds, about being heartbroken about the love of your life being gone.





	Without You

**Author's Note:**

> These songfics won’t let me go...every “I miss you” themed song is Olicity to me. I think this song does a great job capturing what Felicity would feel like without Oliver. I also love Oh Wonder so much. Go listen to them, they’re amazing and their lyrics paint such beautiful pictures. As always, highly recommend listening to the song while reading.

_**Step out into the sun** _

_**Skies above they radiate me** _

_**Lift up carry the love** _

 

Falling in love with Oliver had opened so many doors for Felicity. Cleared so many clouds. It was as if she’d only been seeing her life with the lights half on, and then Oliver had thrown open a window into a world of self-discovery and soul consuming, world ending love. She’d become someone she hadn’t even known she could be. Overwatch, cracker of codes and bringer of truth. As painful and scary as it had been at times, her life had been full, exhilarating.

 

_**Do you know** _

_**That I've been out of my mind** _

_**This slow life I'm waiting for you** _

_**To swing me all of your light** _

 

And then it had all come crashing down. As much as Felicity loved and cherished Oliver’s selflessness, she wished, now more than ever, that he would be just a little more self-centered. She’d watched her life as she’d known it be placed in cuffs and driven away in an FBI van. If Felicity Smoak was anything, it was strong, and she knew she could damn well survive without Oliver. She and William would be just fine, physically. But there was no strength in this world that could patch their souls together after Watson, and by extent, Oliver, had slashed a jagged, gaping hole in them.

 

They would have three meals a day, but it wouldn’t be blueberry pancakes and eggs made with love, or lunches with cheesy messages written on pink post-it notes on the inside of the bag, or a fresh, home cooked dinner whose scent filled the corners of the apartment. She would have a bed to sleep in, but without his chest to lay her head on or their big blue quilt. William would a science project to be proud of, but no Dad to proudly demonstrate it to. Yes, they would survive, but Felicity wasn’t sure how they’d live.

 

Everyday was another notch in the wall, another day of waiting for their Oliver.

 

_**Do you know** _

_**Since I've been walking solo** _

 

As close as she was to William, to John, to Lyla, there were just certain things she couldn’t confide in a twelve year old or her best friends with. Like the way she missed him not just emotionally, but physically. She missed being close to him, missed his skin on hers, missed the things they’d make each other feel late at night when they’d find the safe haven of each other’s bodies after the days that had felt like they’d ever end.Even the things that were appropriate for sharing—like the way they’d talk late into the night about nothing, or watch bad TV together on Sunday mornings, or have midnight snacks together after coming home from the bunker—just felt too sacred, too intimate to show to the outside world. Those were Felicity and Oliver things. They were No One Else things, or else they’d stop being Felicity and Oliver things.

 

So she went without those rich laughs, those warm smiles and quiet sighs and badly muffled chip crunches. She locked them up deep in her heart; they couldn’t exist without Oliver.

 

_**Dreaming you were back home** _

_**Hi fi getting down low** _

_**Hide until tomorrow** _

 

One of the thing she and William sadly did share were the sleepless nights. The first night in their new house, she’d cried herself to sleep wrapped in one of Oliver’s sweaters that she’d been allowed to take from their apartment. She suspected William had done something similar. The first week had been too exhausting for anything other than sleeping like the dead, but as time progressed and their minds had rested enough for it to hit home that Oliver really was not coming back, the nightmares had started. Too often, they ended up in each other’s rooms, shaking each other awake. The human brain was a tricky thing, and no dreams were identical, but Felicity’s and William’s shared a common thread; for the cries that woke them up at night always called for the same soul:

 

_Dad._

_Oliver._

 

**_Come back into the good life_ **

**_Lose these hazy love lines_ **

**_I've been chasing my mind_ **

**_Lonely in the cold nights_ **

 

As much as witness protection sucked, Felicity knew that prison was in no way kinder. It’d taken a few days; but Felicity had worked up the stomach to research conditions in a Supermax. _Better terrible truths than kind lies_ , she’d once read in a book she’d long forgotten the name of.

 

_Barely any time outside,_ one inmate interview she’d listened to had said. Oliver lived for fresh air.

 

She’d seen a collection of crude weapons designed by inmates that were common in prison riots; and her stomach had turned over. She knew Oliver could defend himself, but so much as a nick from one of those could mean a deadly infection, and there was no telling what kind of blind eye the guards might to fights.

 

_Shared shower space._ She hadn’t seen pictures of this, but she didn’t need to. Oliver was self-conscious enough about his scars as it was. Sure, he’d go shirtless in the bunker all the time, but she couldn’t imagine him being okay with a room of hostiles scrutinizing the marks on his body.

 

She knew from her less legal research that one too many of Oliver’s captures as Green Arrow were now his neighbors. He would by no means be popular. Too many revenge-hungry people in his vicinity to allow putting his guard down. God, would he be able to sleep at all? He never slept well in new places, Felicity knew. She knew that if he wanted to really, truly sleep, he needed to feel safe. Slabside was about as far from Oliver’s definition of “safe” as a place could be.

 

She wanted him back in her arms, in her bed, in her house. Where he was loved, safe. Where he could be happy.

 

**_Cos I'm kicking up stones without you_ **

**_Can't pick up the phone without you_ **

**_I'm a little bit lost without you_ **

**_Without you_ **

****

**_And I'm digging down holes without you_ **

**_Can't be on my own without you_ **

**_I'm a little bit lost without you_ **

**_Without you_ **

 

Her best friend is gone. Her conversation partner. Her love. Her North Star. There is too much empty space in her life. Felicity’s spent so much time filling her empty spaces that this one hits her harder than any other before. Because this is a space she feels no desire to fill. There is an Oliver shaped hole in her heart and no matter how many stones or how much dirt she tries to fill it with it never will fill, because the only thing that could fill it is him, and it feels a little cruel to both of them to try. She knows she shouldn’t let herself ruminate too much on it; but for a long time, there’s not much else she feels like doing.

 

**_Step out into the dark_ **

**_Where were you when I was trying_ **

**_To lift up carry the love_ **

 

Felicity rages at him, too. When William’s not around to hear her. Oh, the things she says to him. She loves him, she loves him so much, she always will, but she’s also just so furious at him. She knows it’s important to him to be good, to be better; and she wants that for him; but for her own broken heart she sometimes wishes he’d be just a little bad. She wishes he could be selfish, refuse to leave his family. She wishes he wanted to protect them less. She loves her husband for exactly who he is, but right now it’s killing her.

 

A not small part of Felicity feels betrayed. She’s spent years trying to prove to him that he’s not alone, Hell, she’d broken off their first engagement in an effort to validate her role as his partner. And she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d reached a point where he’d begun to lean on her a little more. She’d been wrong. And maybe this was the most heartbreaking thing about this whole ordeal—that she’d carried so much of their partnership by herself.

 

 

**_Do you know_ **

**_That I've been closing my eyes_ **

**_Love me slow hallucinating_ **

**_You swinging me all of your light_ **

**_Do you know_ **

 

About six weeks into their new life, Felicity catches a nasty fever from her coffee shop job. She spends a weekend in her bed, too exhausted to move. At some point, she runs out of water. It’s late at night, she can’t move to get more and William is asleep in the other room. She’s so thirsty she thinks she might die. Her already grief-torn mind, rattled with fever and thirst, calls up the image of Oliver as if he’s really there. He’s in the shirt he got while they were in Bali, loose pair of jeans, his face is clean and bright. He sets a glass of water on her bedside. She reaches for it, and as her fingers are about to brush the edge of the cool glass, it fades, along with his image. If she passes out after that, it’s from heartbreak, fever be damned.

 

**_Since I've been walking solo_ **

**_Dreaming you were back home_ **

**_Hi fi getting down low_ **

**_Hide until tomorrow_ **

****

**_Come back into the good life_ **

**_Lose these hazy love lines_ **

**_I've been chasing my mind_ **

**_Lonely in the cold nights_ **

****

**_Cos I'm kicking up stones without you_ **

**_Can't pick up the phone without you_ **

**_I'm a little bit lost without you_ **

**_Without you_ **

****

**_And I'm digging down holes without you_ **

**_Can't be on my own without you_ **

**_I'm a little bit lost without you_ **

**_Without you_ **

****

**_Hold me close when it's over_ **

**_Life goes slow loving sober_ **

**_Feel my bones getting older_ **

**_Sadness grows when you go_ **

 

And then she gets the call. The call to come pick him up from maximum security prison. The hug. Yes, they’ve talked. But she hasn’t had his arms around her in months, she hasn’t buried her face in his neck for months. The wave of emotion that washes over her just then almost pulls her under.

 

**_Cos I am one step heavy and two steps high_ **

**_Holding steady with you by my side_ **

**_One step heavy and two steps high_ **

**_Two steps high_ **

 

The recovery process is by no means easy. The sleepless nights and turbulent days remain, and Felicity expects they will for a long time. For nothing worth having is ever easily attained.

 

**_I'm a little bit lost without you_ **

 

But she knows they’ll be okay. Their anniversary rolls around, and it’s a quiet affair. She hasn’t forgotten what she said to him that day. That no matter what came their way, their love could overcome it. She still believes it, especially now that they’re no longer without each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! If you didn’t recognize it, the quote, “better terrible truths than kind lies” is from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, which is one of my all time favorite books. If you haven’t read it I highly encourage it! 
> 
> Also, I’m thinking about doing a standalone fic about Olicity’s anniversary. If you guys have any feelings about that, let me know in the comments or on tumblr @JuvinaDelGreko. 
> 
> As always, thanks so, so much for reading!


End file.
